


Day Six - "Abuse"

by Element_of_Fabulosity



Series: Akatsuki no Yona Angst Week 2k19 [6]
Category: Akatsuki no Yona | Yona of the Dawn
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Jae-ha's backstory, Reminiscing, anyangstweek2k19, prompt was abuse so this fic is as happy as you'd expect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 06:53:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19987942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Element_of_Fabulosity/pseuds/Element_of_Fabulosity
Summary: Ying Kuelbo's castle. Jae-ha, Yona and Yun wait in a dungeon. Jae-ha reminisces.





	Day Six - "Abuse"

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently I really like tormenting small fictional children...no idea what to make of that.

He’s in chains again. How does it always come to this?

...his unspoken joke falls short. Jae-ha’s in no mood to laugh.

Out of the frying pan called Xing, they should have been home safe. For a while, things were fine, if exciting and perhaps exhausting.

Nobody expected Ogi to lead them into a trap.

So here they are, hostages again. Yona and Yun are stubbornly silent, with only the occasional worried glance sent Jae-ha’s way. He doesn’t mind the attention, especially from Yona. The one advantage of being injured. It’s almost enough to make him smile.

The iron bars separating them from the scowling guards are a sight hated nearly as much as the weight of the chains snaking across the floor.

Jae-ha sneers. Once upon a time, he would have considered these damned chains normal. Expected, even. That was long before Gi-gan and Awa. Before the first time he broke free.

His earliest memories are fogged with age, yet too many details remain sharp. He’s too spiteful to let go. Forgive and forget? _Ha._

Jae-ha isn’t sure when he became aware that he was different from Garou. He was chained, and Garou wasn’t. Garou came and left; Jae-ha stayed in the room that comprised, to his naive self, the entire world.

At some point, he put two and two together: if Garou went outside, there was more to the world than that room. And if there was a _more_ , Jae-ha wanted to see it.

The end of ignorant bliss: Jae-ha walked toward that door.

The beginning of a lifelong hatred: he crossed the center of the room, took three more steps, and stopped. The chains were taut.

Still clinging to ignorance, Jae-ha looked at the inexplicable metal links, confounded. He didn’t yet grasp the implications of a manacle around each ankle and wrist and iron chains running back to a stone wall.

It had always been there. He knew nothing else. It was _normal._

Garou came back that evening, a basket of food tucked under his arm and his usual scowl fixed on his face. Jae-ha looked up at him, eyes wide and fearless.

Jae-ha thinks he must have smiled _._ “I want to go outside.”

Jae-ha doesn’t remember Garou’s expression, but he recalls this vividly: thunderous silence. He didn’t know the warning signs yet; couldn’t recognize the cliched calm before the storm.

He was shocked as much as hurt when Garou’s left leg slammed into him.

Jae-ha fell, screaming, enraged as he was frightened. Fury won out. Jae-ha tackled Garou.

It couldn’t be called a fight.

Garou threw Jae-ha onto the floor, and _pain_ was redefined for the second time in a minute. Garou’s right boot landed on Jae-ha’s head. He shrieked, thrashing. His skull had to be cracking. Mucus and tears and grime caked his face. He sucked in a gasp of air and forced his anger and confusion into a wordless scream.

He wanted to see outside why was Garou hurting him why was Garou mad _why couldn’t he go outside too?_

Garou lifted his foot, sneered something or other. Crossing the room, he slumped on the floor and uncorked a bottle of sake. Jae-ha crawled to the room’s opposite end, his back turned to his predecessor.

He decided then that he hated Garou.

Years after the fact, Jae-ha said that was the end of Garou’s feeble kindness.

Now, years after that, he recognizes the truth: neglect as opposed to verbal and physical abuse isn’t _kindness_.

In those years between _I want to go outside_ and _come with me,_ Garou transformed in Jae-ha’s eyes. A catchall father-brother-friend figure became the one person Jae-ha hated more than anyone, the one standing between him and an endless, free sky, the one keeping him on the ground.

Jae-ha’s hatred for those chains and for Garou festered. Innocent curiosity whittled to desperate resolution: he would escape.

Movement catches Jae-ha’s eye as a hand lands on his arm. “Jae-ha?” Yona murmurs.

It’s quiet enough that the guards can still hear her, Jae-ha is sure. He smiles like his ribs don’t hurt with every breath. Yona looks less than assured.

Inevitably, remembering the chains and Garou remind him of another thing. Jae-ha _concentrates_. He can breathe easy; there’s no little Ryokuryuu yet.

...realistically speaking. Will he be able to rescue the poor bastard in time?

Maybe he _is_ out of it. Hak, Yona, Zeno and the younger Dragons can take on the villagers in that hellhole even if Jae-ha is dying or worse. Yun is practically their mother now. Between the four of them-- Yona, Hak, Yun and Zeno-- the next generation of Dragons will be well-loved. Jae-ha’s successor --that sounds weird even in his head-- will grow up without knowing neglect or pain, free to run and soar.

Jae-ha’s gaze falls on the back of Yona’s head. All of this assumes that she knows the truth about the Dragons’ short lives. He has to tell her, sooner rather than later.

_By the way, Yona-chan, I’m dying..._

Not yet.

**Author's Note:**

> Not completely satisfied with this one, but whatever. Kudos/comment if you liked it.


End file.
